Tenuous
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] And now for something a little different. Bet you a thousand gold bars you've never seen this character get a focusfic before.


DISCLAIMER ~ I still don't own XME or its characters, although I have repeatedly set traps around my house with which to catch them. No luck as yet, but they have to slip up sometime...  
  
A/N ~ This ficlet hit me completely out of the blue. I was at work, making smalltalk with random customers, when it bowled through the door, bashed its way through the queue, and fair nearly knocked me off my feet. I like to write about neglected characters, and there's few more neglected than the main characters' parents. But those still living have to have opinions concerning their offspring, don't they? So this is my little homage to all those voiceless characters left so firmly in the background.  
  
Takes place after 'The X Impulse', maybe just a little while after 'Grim Reminder', although that one's debateable. You decide. Reviews shall be printed, framed, and set on my mantelpiece so that I can show them off to guests. Please help me decorate my living room by writing them. Thank you.  
  
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'Tenuous' By Scribbler   
  
September 2003  
  
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When I was a little girl, I dreamed about becoming a mother. I had it all planned out, right down to what romper suits and bootees I'd pick for my baby; pale yellow - not the sickly kind, like raw egg yolk, but just the right side of sunbeams. That was exactly the phrase I used, too. I think my own mother was shocked at how profound a six year old could be.  
  
It was always my dream to get married, start a family, and have a happy home-life. Other girls in my class thought I was nuts - we were the women of the revolution, after all; allowed to go out and work and do whatever we wanted, regardless of old, antiquated values. They couldn't understand how I wanted to embrace those values. They were too busy being rebellious to see what I saw in them.  
  
Maybe I'm not the most adventurous person; but I never claimed I was. I like routine, and I have my habits.   
  
That's not to say I'm obsessive, like some people. If my coffee tastes a little stewy in the morning, then I'm not one to fly off the handle because it isn't 'right'. I don't trek the house, fluffing pillows that look a little saggy and polishing silverware that never comes out of the display cabinet, even on special occasions. No, I'm just comfortable with my life. I live in a rut, but it's my rut. It's what I want - what I've always wanted. I have a nice home in a good neighbourhood, a husband who loves me, and a beautiful daughter that any mother would be proud of.  
  
My daughter...  
  
I was so unutterably *happy* when Kitty was born. Contrary to all my childhood dreams, I found it very difficult to have children. As in, at all. The universe, it seems, likes to toy with people's emotions, letting them think they can have their heart's desire easily and then snatching it away.   
  
Carmen had to console me many, many times when we tried and failed to conceive. I know he grieved for the children I miscarried, and again for the others that were just not meant to be, but he was my rock. He never broke down and just cried, the way I did. I've always been an overly emotional person. He grounds me. That's one of the reasons we work.  
  
I was pushing thirty when it finally happened. I've never felt such joy as I did the day I held our baby daughter in my arms. I'd learned by that time that to put too much faith in things while still in the midst of pregnancy was to set myself up for a fall. I'd taught myself not to feel too much for the little person growing inside of me until I was sure it would be okay, that I would get to cuddle it, smell it, *feel* that it was real.  
  
Kitty was real. Is real. She's the realest thing that's ever happened to me. To us. She's my daughter, the only child I was ever able to birth and have live. My little miracle.  
  
And now...  
  
My little miracle is a mutant.  
  
I'd heard the word before, but the meaning behind it never really struck me. It was a scientific term, used over the heads of regular plebs like me; or else it was something consigned to late night TV and bad sci-fi movies. Mutants, things from outer space, aliens, genetic creations - all fiction and fantasy, I thought. I mean, what person wouldn't? When you saw the Matrix, did you immediately run out and start trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop or bounce off the asphalt? When you see a commercial for some household product that uses a small green alien as its mascot, do you straight away go buy a gun and blast the television screen because it might come to get you?   
  
Mutant.   
  
I'll tell you what it means. It means my daughter is more special than even *I* ever imagined.   
  
She can walk through walls. She's like... like a ghost, really. She just walks, and then it's like the wall isn't even there. Like *nothing* is really there. She can go through anything - anyone. Bricks, floorboards, flesh, bone...  
  
She's 'different', is what she called it.  
  
And I'll tell you right now, that scares me more than anything ever has. Even the threat of never having children at all pales in comparison to this... this thing we have to deal with. Her, Carmen, me - all of us. Our little family.   
  
This is all such new territory. I read up on parenting from childhood, and none of the books ever mentioned anything like this. They never talked about what you'd feel when your baby turns out to be different from everyone else in the world on a genetic level. They never specified what you're supposed to do when strange bald men in wheelchairs try to tell you *what* she is - not who, but what; like she's some slab of meat that doesn't even merit a gender.  
  
No, they never thought to include that chapter, did they?  
  
If I sound bitter, then it's because I am. I'm being very selfish, but there's nobody around to see it. At this moment in time, I'm in no frame of mind to indulge the rest of the world and its minutiae. I want to be selfish for a minute in my complicated little life.   
  
Why did it have to be *my* daughter? She already had so much to deal with - the intelligence that every parent wishes for their offspring never won her any friends, and she always seemed to exude some kind of aura that attracted bullies like wasps to sugar. Things like that don't sound like much to adults, but she's a teenager. They matter at that time in your life.   
  
I'm a homemaker. Since before she could sit up unaided it's been my job to sit home, watch, and worry about her. I saw her problems, no matter how hard she tried to hide them. I know how people at school used to put disgusting things they'd picked up off the street in her locker. I know how they poked fun at the way she talked until she developed a stammer that didn't leave until she'd been through months of elocution lessons. I know how she tried to starve herself thin after all the cracks about her weight and how she's no good at sports. I was always afraid for her well-being - her mental health *and* her physical.  
  
And now this.  
  
My daughter is a mutant.   
  
Mutant.  
  
According to that man, Professor Xavier, that means she's different to the rest of humanity. He never specified whether that means she's still a *part* of humanity, though.   
  
Is she? He called them 'Mankind' and 'Mutantkind'. But Kitty's my daughter, and I'm just human, so surely that makes her still a person, doesn't it? being a mutant doesn't make her any less a person... right?  
  
Right?  
  
What am I supposed to think? If he'd just come to us out of the blue then I would have dubbed him a nut-job, said goodbye, shut the door in his face and made sure that it *stayed* shut.   
  
But I've seen what Kitty can do. I know what she's capable of. I know what all those headaches and bad dreams were about, now. Her brain was getting ready to cope with her new abilities. It was changing - mutating right under our very noses.  
  
We never guessed a thing. *I* never guessed a thing.   
  
Some mother.   
  
She's gone now. Off to that fancy school up near New York. She says the people there are nice, that they're like her. Mutants. They're going to teach her how to cope with her... whatever it is you like to call it. She calls it her power. Xavier called it her gift.   
  
I call it her curse.  
  
Don't get me wrong; I'm so proud of her it's not possible for anyone who is not a mother to understand. My baby is special - *truly* special, the way most folk can only imagine. She embodies the dreams of thousand of generations. She's... for want of a better word, she has *magic* at her command.  
  
And I'm terrified for her because of that.  
  
We had an argument before she left. We seem to be doing that more and more lately. I used to just write it off as hormones, teenage angst, too much bad TV - that sort of thing. But now...   
  
She was packing her suitcase, getting ready to leave the next morning for her new school. Xavier and his students had already left. She was flying coach. We insisted on that one. The rest of the situation was surreal enough, but the sight of a stealth 'plane zooming away into the sunset, piloted only by an eighteen year old boy...   
  
Is there even a word beyond surreal?   
  
She was so glad about what had happened. She barely even mentioned the parts concerning that boy in the office, or the building falling down on us all. The good obviously outweighed the bad in her mind. So what if she'd broken into the place to help steal test scores? So what if she'd been duped by some no-brainer who probably wouldn't ever make it to the dizzy heights of washing cars at stoplights? She'd found out something about herself that few others could claim, and what that entailed made everything all right in her book.  
  
I just stood in her doorway until she noticed me, listening to her talk to herself. She was laughing and smiling, dancing to some band I've never heard of and preening herself in the mirror. She stopped preening when the anorexia started, and it made my heart swell to see her acting a little vain again.  
  
I don't even remember how the argument began. It was something petty, that much I grasp. I think I may have rubbed some of the shine off her big adventure with the questions I was asking and the things I was saying. You know how it is. I had reservations about things she hadn't thought about, pointing out flaws in her great plan to do her life over in a different place. Things escalated. She ended up calling me a bigot, and said I didn't initially want to accept her power because I was afraid of it.   
  
Imagine that. She thought her own mother was so afraid of her as to become bigoted.  
  
I tried to explain my point of view, but Kitty has, unfortunately, inherited one of my lesser attributes in my weakness for being overly emotional. She started crying and stormed out, slamming her door so hard it rattled my teeth.   
  
I wanted to go after her, but what she'd said stung more than I'd thought it would. And for the life of me all I could do was watch her go, and then sit on her bed, hugging the teddy bear her grandfather gave her when she was five.   
  
I choked. I know I did. How else could I not have made it clear that I'm not afraid *of* her, but *for* her. Being a mutant, it's so big. Bigger than me, or her, or any of our family. Mutancy. It's going to change the world when it finally gets out. And it will get out. You just have to look at the scope of what's happening to see that.   
  
People kill each other over the colour of their skin, their sexuality, or what religion they are. They do terrible, horrible things to people because they're different - because they don't fit in. I've seen the stories on the news, how these things are barely recognised anymore, they happen so often. I've walked past places covered in flowers for people that were murdered there.  
  
How long until mutants start getting that kind of treatment? How long until 'normal' humans get jealous and turn on them? How long before lynch mobs and gangs spring up, they way they have everywhere else *for* everything else. Humanity is self-destructive. How long before a *real* bigot tries to hurt my little girl just because she has a few extra strands to her DNA?  
  
I can't let that happen. I *won't* let that happen. My family is my whole world. I won't let some prejudiced, intolerant nobody harm them.   
  
But... what can I do? I'm a homemaker. I stay in my safe little house, in my safe little neighbourhood, and watch the world go by. I couldn't even make Kitty eat when she stopped, and all I could do when she got bullied was send her to an elocutionist. What could someone like me do against a person with a gun and a grudge?  
  
I feel so helpless.  
  
I know what she'd say to something like that. She'd say I was overreacting, letting my imagination run away with me. Well, I am. That's my prerogative as a mother.  
  
Those stories on the news, they were always just stories. Sure, I felt bad for whoever had lost a son, a father, an aunt; but I felt bad the same way I feel bad when reading books about the Civil War, or the conflict in the Far East. It's chilling stuff, but I have no real personal stake in any of it. It doesn't affect me or my little corner of the universe. Sure, I can feel sad about it. Sorrow is something I can do, however mild, but fear never came into it. Grainy pictures of flags and soldiers in khaki uniforms didn't inspire me to feel fear.  
  
Now I feel it. Cold, visceral fear, like someone's punched me in the gut and ruptured my insides.   
  
I'm afraid for her, for what will happen to her if she doesn't hide. I'm not ashamed of her, like she thinks. I just don't want all this to blow up in her face. I don't want her to pin all her hopes on this Xavier and his school. He can't change her that way. He can't make her a new person, or give her a completely new, improved life like she wants. He's some kind of teacher - a guide in this new world she's become a part of. Whatever she builds in his school won't alter the fact that she's an Illinois girl, with an Illinois home and an Illinois family who love her so very, very much.   
  
I remember now, one of the things I said in that argument. It may have been what made her leave so abruptly. You see, I told her that, in life, she should at least *try* to fit in. She shouldn't try to be special or distinctive. I can see how that would hurt her - she's so proud now of what she can do - but she left before I got the chance to finish. I want her to fit in, not because I care what the rest of the world think about her, but because if she doesn't then they'll destroy her. They'll take who she is, and they'll string her out to dry, because that's what 'they' do.  
  
I don't want that for her. I want her to be happy, to be content - but above all, I want her to be *safe*.  
  
And if that means she has to hide her extraordinary power, then so be it. I'd rather have a safe, 'normal' daughter, than a special dead one.   
  
Why won't she listen to me?  
  
Baby, even if you've never understood anything coming out of my mouth in your life, please, *please* try to understand me now. I'm scared, yes, but not for the reasons you're thinking of. We don't live in a perfect world, we live in one that hates and fears what it doesn't understand. This world, this place we live in is dangerous for people who dare to be different, however unknowingly or unwillingly. I don't want you to be hurt or killed just because of who you are.   
  
This is a world where old women are murdered in their own homes, all for a few measly coins that wouldn't buy a hotdog from a vendor. This is a world where Kitty Genovese was allowed to die in a well-lit residential street, in front of thirty-eight people. This world is not a nice place beneath the surface.  
  
Kitty's always been about principles. I get the feeling that this is going to be no different. She's not going to listen to me. She's going to take risks, maybe even show herself and what she can do to the world. She's going to be uplifted by the newness of it all, and not see how or why people could see it differently.  
  
And whoever's listening Up There, I hate you for doing this to her. I hate you for giving her this wonderful gift, and I hate you for sending her to a place where she'll learn more about it and how to control it. I hate you, because by giving her what she most wants, you're putting her in harm's way, and putting me through hell. I hate you! Hate, hate, hate!  
  
Yes, I'm being blasphemous, but I really don't care anymore. Being smote by an angry deity is the least of my worries right now.   
  
My daughter, my little miracle - she's gone. I don't even know what that Xavier's place looks like outside of the way she describes it in her emails. I don't know the people that she talks about, the friends she's made. I can't begin to picture what this Kurt boy looks like, or how his accent sounds. Or this other teacher, a Mister Logan. Who's he? What's he like? Is he good enough to be moulding my Kitty into adulthood? That's supposed to be my job, I'm her mother.  
  
Kitty, please, just listen to me. I'm so very, very pleased for you. I know how much this means to you, and I never, ever want for you to be unhappy again. But try to appreciate what I'm telling you. Hide what you are, and what you can do. Learn what you need to, and then bury it, deep down, where other people's digging won't unearth it. I'm not saying this because I'm jealous of your power, or because I'm afraid of it. It saved my life, once. *You* saved my life.  
  
Now I'm trying to save yours.  
  
Hide what you are, sweetie. Conceal your true nature, because it's the only way to survive in that world you're going into. I can't go there with you to protect you, and that terrifies me. So I'm telling you this now, while I still can.   
  
You're my daughter. I love you with everything I've got, even if you don't think I do. I know I haven't been a model parent with all this mutant thing going on, but like your father said, we're learning. Please, just try to learn with us and from us.  
  
You're my world, Kitty. You're my little girl, and I love you. I'll do anything to keep you safe from all the monsters the universe has to offer, but I can't be there all the time. I need to know you're going to be safe, even without me around.  
  
I just want to help you. Why won't you listen to me?   
  
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FINIS.  
  
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